Charles W. Lidz, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He has a long history of empirical research on bioethical issues. This began with the first NIH funded study on informed consent in the 1980s. Shortly thereafter, in collaboration with his colleagues, he published the initial paper on therapeutic misconception. In the 90s, with funding from the MacArthur Foundation, he published a series of studies on coercion in treatment decision-making that established the MacArthur Perceived Coercion Scale as the major method of studying coercion in research and treatment decisions. Thereafter, with funding from NIH, he undertook the first effort to systematically study the frequency of therapeutic misconception in clinical research consents. A subsequent study of therapeutic misconception among clinical researchers and its consequences for research integrity was recently published. His current research concerns decision-making in institutional review boards (IRBs) and their role in regulating research. He is also working on his NIH Challenge grant to study the blurring of the boundaries between research and clinical care in clinical trials.

About Charles W. Lidz

Charles W. Lidz, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He has a long history of empirical research on bioethical issues. This began with the first NIH funded study on informed consent in the 1980s. Shortly thereafter, in collaboration with his colleagues, he published the initial paper on therapeutic misconception. In the 90s, with funding from the MacArthur Foundation, he published a series of studies on coercion in treatment decision-making that established the MacArthur Perceived Coercion Scale as the major method of studying coercion in research and treatment decisions. Thereafter, with funding from NIH, he undertook the first effort to systematically study the frequency of therapeutic misconception in clinical research consents. A subsequent study of therapeutic misconception among clinical researchers and its consequences for research integrity was recently published. His current research concerns decision-making in institutional review boards (IRBs) and their role in regulating research. He is also working on his NIH Challenge grant to study the blurring of the boundaries between research and clinical care in clinical trials.